


14BBY

by jasondont (minigami)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Fix-It of Sorts, Imperial Era, M/M, Post-Order 66 (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:33:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29399121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minigami/pseuds/jasondont
Summary: Obi-Wan leaves Tatooine once when Luke is still four. He promised Yoda he never would—but when he's told his old commander has escaped the Empire's control, he doesn't hesitate.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody & Obi-Wan Kenobi, CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 21
Kudos: 320
Collections: Star Wars Valentine's Exchange 2021





	14BBY

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jadetheaverage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadetheaverage/gifts).



> I'm not sure this is the kind of soft moment you had in mind, but I hope you like this anyway!! Happy Valentine's Day!!!

The ship connects to the cruiser with a clank, and Obi-Wan stands up from the copilot seat. He pauses, looks at his pilot, but the Twi’lek is focused on the readouts, her lekku twitching distractedly. She must feel him staring, because she blinks, raises her head, and turns to look at him.

She doesn’t look much like her father—Obi-Wan hasn’t spent that much time with Hera Syndulla, but for now the only similarity between her and her progenitor is the fierce determination they seem to share.

He must admit that he likes her much better than he ever liked Cham—he’d feel worse about it if he didn’t have the feeling Hera doesn’t like her father that much either.

She looks young, late teens at most, but she pilots the non-descript shuttle with surety, and unlike most of the vocational pilots Obi-Wan has met in his life, she’s perfectly level-headed about it. In the Force, she feels serene and stable and warm, all iron-clad determination intertwined with kindness.

“I can finish here, Mr Ben,” she tells him when she catches him looking. He’s sure she knows what and who he is, who he used to be, but she’s been clever about acting as if she didn’t.

“Thank you for giving me a lift, then, in case we don’t see each other again,” he replies. She smiles at him, and her lekku curl inwards with satisfaction.

“Thank _you_ , Mr Ben,” she answers. She pauses, and then continues. “You’ve been one of the more tolerable passengers I’ve ever had.”

Obi-Wan laughs and leaves the cockpit.

A few minutes later the airlock opens. He steps over the threshold, and waits while it closes behind himself again. Barely a handful of seconds later, he feels Syndulla’s ship disconnect, and then the floor vibrates under his feet: she’s left again.

Obi-Wan sighs. He presses his clothes down, trying to get used to the spacer costume he’s been forced to don. He misses his beard, as well—but Jedi High General Obi-Wan Kenobi has an enormous bounty on his head. And while he can’t change his face, and this cruise and Syndulla’s ship are supposed to be friendly territory, one can’t be too careful.

He shouldn’t be here—he should be back on Tatooine, watching over Luke. He’ll be turning five soon: his uncle won’t let Obi-Wan get close to him, but he’s been keeping an eye of him. He’s begun to show signs of his Force sensitivity, and he’s too young to either control it without help or know that he should be careful about who he shows it to. Obi-Wan’s had to act as a buffer between him and the curiosity of the Larses’ few neighbours more than once in the past few months.

If Yoda could see him, if he knew that he’s left his post for something so—personal and potentially dangerous, well. Obi-Wan knows without a doubt the old goblin wouldn’t be happy with him.

There are two guards waiting for him on the other side of the airlock. They are armed with blasters, and the one on the right talks to his comm while his partner approaches Obi-Wan, something that’s half-way between apprehension and admiration in her dark eyes. She takes a scanner out of one of her belt pouches and points it at him. He smiles politely, holds his hands at his back, and stays still. When the machine beeps he nods his head.

The woman tucks the scanner back in her back pocket and then smiles at him openly.

“Follow me, sir,” she says. She nods at her partner and then begins walking down the hallway.

It’s completely empty save for them. They pass in front of a dozen doors, all of them locked, and stop in front of a lift.

The woman keeps glancing at him. She’s dark-haired, tall and broad-shouldered, and towers over him, but suddenly it hits Obi-Wan how young she really is—she couldn’t have been older than twenty when the war ended.

He follows her when she steps inside the lift, and watches silently while she uses a keycard to activate the control panel.

Obi-Wan thinks about the ship, about her, about Syndulla and the other guard: they are all part of Organa’s quiet resistance movement but he can’t help but wonder at their obvious youth, at the existence of the cruiser itself. It’s too big to be anything but a freighter, a medical frigate or a military cruiser, but under Imperial law the licences for the first two are exceedingly watched, and the last are outright forbidden for everyone but the Empire itself.

He keeps his face blank and polite, his demeanor calm, but inside he can’t help but think that he’s made a mistake, that he’s risking too much for something that might not work out.

But no—he had to come. He had to see him.

The lift stops. The woman turns to look at him and doesn’t get out.

“Down this hallway, the last door to the left. It’ll be open. When you want to leave, just call the lift again,” she tells him. She opens her mouth, closes it again, and then squares her shoulders. She flushes but looks him in the eye. “It was an honor meeting you, m—sir.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t sigh, but he’d really like to. He nods his head, still smiling, and exits the lift without a word.

The hallway on the other side is as white, empty and sterile as the one he left seconds ago. Obi-Wan pauses, closes his eyes and reaches out: there are people in some of the cabins. Most of them are asleep, and the ones who aren’t are busy or too tired and too hurt to be busy.

One of them isn’t either, however, and Obi-Wan swallows and pauses right outside the lift. It’s been five years, and he’s changed, but the twists and turns of his thoughts are still familiar.

It’s harder than it should to make himself walk. Obi-Wan clenches and unclenches his fists, and then breathes in, breathes out, his eyes closed.

He takes one step, then another, and soon he is in front of the door. He swallows again, his mouth dry. His fingers itch for his lightsaber, hidden in the inner pocket of his jacket, but he doesn’t reach for it: there’s no need.

The door is locked. Obi-Wan swallows again, and then raises his left hand, knocks twice on the white durasteel.

Cody’s thoughts turn first to shock, to fear and anxiety, and then to annoyance. They didn’t tell him that Obi-Wan was coming—Obi-Wan feels something very like dread bloom in his chest. The last time they saw each other Cody was trying to kill him, and Obi-Wan knows it was the chip in his head, he knows that thing isn’t, anymore, but still—they shouldn’t have jumped that on him.

It’s too late, however. Obi-Wan feels more than hears footsteps approach the door, and he tenses, bites the inside of his cheek.

The door opens. Cody blinks, a subtle frown on his face. He’s changed: he looks older, rougher, more worn. There’s white on his temples, and a pale, wide burn scar cuts the right side of his face from his forehead to his jaw, crossing over his eye. He’s wearing a pale, soft-looking grey shirt, pale trousers, and his feet are bare.

At first it’s clear he doesn’t quite recognise Obi-Wan; his frown deepens, and he opens his mouth, a question resting on the tip of his tongue. But then he blinks, and the colour drains from his brown face, and—well.

When he closes the door again, Obi-Wan can’t say he is that surprised.

He sighs. He rubs his face, the smooth skin strange against his fingertips. He hesitates between knocking again and just—leaving. Finding some way of going back home, back to Tatooine and Luke and his duty.

He turns on his heel, takes a step, and then—then the door opens once again. He freezes. Looks over his shoulder.

Cody is there, on the threshold, still pale and holding onto the door jamb with a white-knuckled grip. His hair is beginning to grow and curl, but Obi-Wan can still see the scar from the chip surgery to the left.

“It’s you,” Cody says, his voice a hoarse whisper. He swallows, and Obi-Wan turns to look at him. He nods, attempts to smile. “It’s really you.”

“Sorry,” Obi-Wan begins. “I—I thought they would have told you. That I was coming. That you wanted to—”

He trails away. Cody closes his eyes, just a beat, and then blinks them open again. He lets go of the door and—and falls into parade rest, his hands at his back, his face blank. In the Force, it feels like he’s put on a beskar helmet, his thoughts and feelings muted.

Obi-Wan feels himself grow distant as well.

“I will leave you alone, then,” he tells him. “It’s—it’s good to see you are once again yourself, Com—Cody.”

He nods his head and turns on his heel. His hands are cold, but he feels—numb. He doesn’t quite know what he feels.

“Wait,” Cody says, his voice surprisingly loud and clear in the quiet hallway. Obi-Wan does. He turns back to him again.

For a beat, they just look at each other.

“Yes?” Obi-Wan wishes he was wearing his robes—he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

He can see the way Cody takes in air and then exhales it. He raises his chin and looks Obi-Wan in the eye.

“I’d—I would like to tell you something. Sir,” he says. He blinks, looks away for a second. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

Obi-Wan swallows. “You don’t have to call me sir anymore, Cody,” he says.

Cody doesn’t answer, just looks at him, but Obi-Wan feels his sharp pang of agony, just for a second—the feeling disappears immediately, well-hidden in the depths of Cody’s mind.

It leaves him feeling out of sorts. More than he already was.

“May I come in, then? Please?”

Cody blinks, nonplussed. Then he nods.

“Of course.”

*

The room is small, the same size as Obi-Wan’s quarters back on his Venator, but much cozier. There is a soft looking blanket on the narrow bed, a desk piled high with datapads, a caf maker on the corner with a mug and a box of dark chocolate drops. On the opposite wall to the desk there is another door, half-open, and through it Obi-Wan can see a tiny ‘fresher.

It’s warmer than the hallway outside, and it smells like Cody, like Cody’s quarters used to back in the Negotiator. Obi-Wan finds himself looking for the familiar white and orange armour, for the deecee Cody always had on the small bedside table, for the holo he kept on the desk.

Cody watches him look, still rigid and clearly uncomfortable, standing next to his bed, hands at his back. He’s wider in the shoulders than he used to, but Obi-Wan can’t help but think that he’s too thin, his cheekbones too sharp.

There is a chair next to the desk. Obi-Wan grabs the back and pauses, looking at him. The datapad is still on, and from the corner of his eyes he can see what appears to be a news site. He blinks and looks away.

Cody clears his throat. He’s still at parade rest, straight-backed and tense. Obi-Wan hates to see him like this, but he’s aware of the way he himself is standing, falsely calm, hands curled at his sides—Cody knows him too well. He can see he is tense, that he’s—waiting for something, for some sign that the order to kill him wasn’t just the chip.

And in his head, Obi-Wan knows Cody had no control over his actions. He logically knows that he was as much a victim as Obi-Wan almost was. But there’s a difference between knowing and believing, and his body still remembers. He remembers the shock, the pain, the grief, the hurt, and the guilt.

Cody swallows again, and then he tenses up further. Obi-Wan reaches out to him with the Force, as subtle as he is able to, but his shields are made of beskar. He feels like a mirror more than like a man.

“I—I’d like to apologize,” Cody says. He looks Obi-Wan in the eye, but his own eyes are flat—it’s like he’s not even there, like he’s removed himself from the situation.

Obi-Wan sighs. He rubs at his face and takes a step closer, stops when he sees Cody tense.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he begins, “you couldn’t have—”

“I knew. About the chips,” Cody interrupts him. “Rex told me. And I read the report about Tup and Fives. I—I _knew_ Fives. I should have done something.”

For a beat, Obi-Wan just looks at him.

“Then I should apologize to you, as well,” he replies. “Because I also read that report. I was in the Council when that was discussed. And I knew Fives as well.”

Cody frowns and looks away.

“It’s not the same.”

“Oh, I agree. I would say it’s worse.”

Frustration, sharp and hot as a furnace, pierces Cody’s shields.

“I took a shot at you,” Cody tells him, monotone. He’s fallen out of parade rest, his fists clenched at his sides. “I ordered you killed. And—you don’t know what I’ve been doing. These last few years.”

Obi-Wan closes his eyes. He can imagine. Cody was—he _is_ one of the best, and they would have known that. He can feel Cody’s guilt, the way horror and shame swirl around him, filling the small, bare room. He opens his eyes again and, after a second of doubt, he takes a step closer, and then another. Cody swallows, dark eyes wide open and confused, but he doesn’t move.

“Cody,” he begins, “it wasn’t your fault. You were robbed of your sense of self. Your autonomy.”

“I could choose whether I had caf or tea for breakfast, sir,” Cody answers, black, bitter irony dripping from his words. “I could have found a way. I wasn’t gone.”

Obi-Wan had forgotten how stubborn and hard-headed Cody can be when he thinks he is right about something.

“So kill me then,” he says. He slips his lightsaber from his jacket, throws it on the bed, opens his arms. “Kill me now.”

Cody scowls, frustrated. His right hand twitches, and he makes it a fist.

“You don’t understand, sir,” he says, frustrated, voice hoarse. “I—”

“Oh, no. I understand perfectly,” Obi-Wan tells him. He allows himself a small smile. “I just think you’re wrong.”

For a beat, he thinks Cody is about to actually try and punch him.

He’d let him.

Finally, Cody exhales. He rubs at his face, at the scar on his head, and glares at Obi-Wan between his fingers.

“Osik. I had forgotten how—how you were,” he says, and Obi-Wan would take it as an insult if he didn’t sound so fond.

He drops on his bed, sits down on the lightsaber and scowls. He hands it back to Obi-Wan, the emitter facing himself, and Obi-Wan accepts it. When he grabs it, their fingers brush, and he swallows.

He slips it back into its rightful place and then turns to look at Cody.

“May I—may I sit with you?”

Cody blinks up at him for a beat, uncomprehending, and then he looks away. Nods. Moves a bit to the left.

Obi-Wan sits next to him on the bed with a sigh. Cody’s weight makes him lean towards him, and Obi-Wan feels him tense. For a second, he thinks about moving away, standing up, removing himself from the room until Cody’s ready to talk to him, whenever that happens.

But he doesn’t, for the same reason he left his duty and Tatooine behind: this is important.

Obi-Wan carefully leans back against Cody’s shoulder, solid and warm, and turns his face so that he can look at him. There is a bump on the bridge of Cody’s nose that wasn’t there the last time they saw each other, and his eyes are more lined. He missed a patch right under his jaw the last time he shaved, and everything’s changed but suddenly Obi-Wan can’t remember if he’s on Bail Organa’s cruiser, or back in the Negotiator.

Cody is looking at his own lap, his hands on his thighs. They tremble slightly. Obi-Wan notices then that he’s missing his ring finger in his left hand. The scar looks—it doesn’t look old, at all. Obi-Wan swallows, but the bitter taste doesn’t leave his mouth.

“Cody,” he says. “Cody, dear, would you please look at me?”

Cody snorts. He raises his head and looks at Obi-Wan; in the Force, he’s exasperated, but there is an undercurrent of reluctant fondness, warm and true, undercutting his frustration.

“Don’t you _dear_ at me,” he replies, voice dry. “I’m not Ventress.”

Obi-Wan laughs despite himself.

“No, Ventress you’re clearly not,” he says. “Force, I’d completely forgotten about her. I haven’t thought about her in—many years.”

Since well before the end of the war.

Cody looks away again. For a while, they sit in silence, the ship humming around them. Obi-Wan feels how Cody slowly leans back against him, the soft fabric of his shirt catching on the surface of his jacket, his thigh against Obi-Wan’s leg, warm and heavy and shivering slightly.

Cody sighs and turns to look at him—Obi-Wan braces.

“I missed you,” Cody suddenly says, his voice low, careful. “I didn’t even know why or what exactly I was missing, but I missed you.”

It’s Obi-Wan’s turn to look away. He swallows and reaches for Cody’s left hand with his right, links their fingers. For an instant, Cody doesn’t move—and then he grips his hand back, his palm warm and wide against Obi-Wan’s.

Obi-Wan sighs. He knocks his shoulder against Cody’s and then stays there.

“I missed you too, my dear,” he says.


End file.
